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Friday 27 April 2012

walking to work

Yesterday on my way to the OU, while walking through a little car park that sits alongside the field I have to walk across, I came upon a woman I recognised from the OU sitting in her car, talking rather passionately on her cellphone, but sobbing with the same intensity. For a moment I thought, should I ask her if she was ok? Clearly she was not - the lone figure in a almost secluded car park in the middle of a working morning, crying loudly. I recognised this scene - I was that very woman. Many times in my life. And I could imagined what that impassioned phone call might be about. As I walked pass her car, I thought - Goodness life can really be challenging, tough and sad sometimes. But at the moment I'm grateful that my life seems to be ok, even more than ok. Sure I'm on a roller-coaster ride of emotions with this PhD - but in the grand scheme of things I'm ok.

I booked my flight back to Cape Town in September and since I've booked the ticket my head has been filled with all sorts of logistics planning as I prepare to leave the UK and settle back in Cape Town. I've been thinking about when I heard I got the scholarship to come study at the OU in June 2008. I thought about all my plans then, all my dreams, expectations, hopes and excitements. I thought about my last day in Cape Town how the realisation of what I was doing to do was slowing starting to register. Those first few months in the UK and my sister saying to me that if I wanted to come back home it would be ok, that I didn't have to feel ashamed if I came home without doing what I had set out to do - I would be accepted anyway. And me insisting that I would be fine. Now I'm planning to go back and all I think about is being in Cape Town and working on my thesis. I think about the little things, arrangements for my flat, logistics for settling back into the swing of things, of life there. Sitting in my old study working on my thesis, or spending the morning or afternoon at UCT library or my favourite cafe in Observatory, working on my thesis. I'm not thinking about the more major choices and changes I will have to cope with or the possibility that my expectations of what coming home means to me, might not be fulfilled. In many ways that September deadline is pushing me forward, it is one of my best coping mechanism at the moment.

It's Freedom Day in South Africa today - 18 years ago this time I was working at a voting station in Silvertown. Watching the hundreds (thousands maybe?) of people come to cast their votes for the very first time. I remember standing alongside my sister and boyfriend (at the time) in the line outside the voting station when they came to vote. I remember the excitement in the air, the excitement we all felt, the prospect for something new, positive in our country. It's a positive thought to have at this moment and I'll be thinking of my friends and family in SA today, as they enjoy the start of long weekend.


Thursday 26 April 2012

a good space

I'm currently in a good space. A good space mentally, rather than in a good space in relation to my thesis. Well partly my mental good space has to do with the thesis - well the beginnings of my thesis anyway. I'm busy crafting my methodology chapter and for the first time I can see where I want to take the thesis and what the end result of putting my research into a thesis might look like. For anyone doing any form of qualitative and, especially, ethnographic research the thesis is built on the methodology chapter. It defines and stakes your claim to your research study. Maybe I'll feeling like this because for the first time I can see my voice come through and I can see some sort of concretization of the fieldwork I did last year. I even want to say I'm excited about writing this part of the thesis 'story'. It's freaking challenging and at the moment I can see the gaps in my explanations, especially my theoretical justifications, for the decisions I made. But it's ok. I'm having a good moment and I want to fully experience it.

On the thesis front - things are not looking so bright. I still don't have enough chapters under my belt and this is a constant and pressing concern. I'm ALWAYS thinking about dates, schedules, options. I seem to be constantly 'behind' whatever schedule I create. I have to submit the methodology chapter next Wednesday and I can't see how I'm doing to find the time to do the missing section on validity before then. Of course this will have a knock on effect on my already tight and, may I say, ridiculous work plan. I wanted to have a whole thesis draft ready by the end of August - but I have four months to finish 6 chapters and my writing to date has been slow, slow, slow. But I'm not going to spoil my good and happy space with worries about time constraints. Not at this moment anyway.

Sunday 22 April 2012

roll on chapter

I have about 10 days to get a draft chapter in for review. I took my spew draft as far as it could go and I'm now adding in the complexity and layers. All sorts of thoughts are entering my mind as I prepare to complete this second stage of writing this chapter - firstly, that I could have completed a more sensitive ethnography, I look back now and feel I was just fumbling in the dark, with little guidance to pay attention to specific aspects of my practice, even though I read a lot of ethnography and ethnographic practice I can't see the tangible influences on my practice; secondly, I wonder if what I'm writing about my research methodology is just glorified 'retrospective' padding - now that I'm reading the literature I'm filling in the blanks, the gaps and I have to ask myself, 'surely those gaps shouldn't have been there in the first place?'; and finally, I wish I had written at least part of my methodology chapter almost immediately after fieldwork - of course I couldn't have know that then, but maybe I should have had some guidance in this respect, at least then I would have a more immediate record of what I did and what the 'true' motivations for my choices and actions were. Anyway - hindsight is probably a false teacher - when looking back at the past one can always find ways in which it could have been improved, but you can only do that because you have the benefit of having experienced that past. My energies are probably better spent on completing the chapter than pondering the inadequacies of my past.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

change is as good as a holiday

I'm back at my desk at the OU and acutely aware of the truism reflected in the idiom above. I've had a very relaxed and easy past week. Maybe a reflection of what is normally possible in a working day, rather then my unrealistic ideals. And where Saturday's and Sunday's are spent doing 'other' things rather than obsessing about what work still needs to be done. In a strange way I felt productive.
I've managed to write up a large segment of what will eventual become my methodology chapter. There are three sections I still need to tackle - data analysis, ethics and validity and I don't feel daunted by this task. Of course what I have currently written is weak and disconnected but it's a start and what's more I didn't feel overwhelmed by having to write it. And at this point being able to write in this way and not associate writing with stress and inadequency is a very big deal for me. So in this respect giving myself the freedom to write irresponsibly has had a positive outcome. If all goes well I would like to finish this 'version' of the chapter by Friday and start the process of layering in the literature, theories and strenghtening the justification for my research choices - which I hope will take me another week. If all works out I should meet my 3 May deadline.


Spring sunshine on the lake on a Sunday afternoon
I feel calmer about things, about the progress I am making and the pace at which I am working. Maybe I'm seeing some perspective in this whole process. But I realise it's something I have to work at daily - each day I battle myself, my anxieties, inadequecies, self-doubt, fears, guilt. I can only hope that each day I become more accepting of what is and what can or cannot be changed about this process that I invited into my life. But I've had a good week and a half and I'm grateful and so I continue on.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

writing a spew draft of my methodology chapter

Yes - spew as in vomit or throw-up. Apparently it's a way of getting your ideas and thoughts on paper without being so critical and circumspect that the flow of the writing process suffers. I'm going to give it a try because normally my overwhelming need to 'make everything perfect' the first time around really acts as a barrier when I'm writing - making writing a really painful experience. I've marked up the chapter outline and hope to get cracking soon.

But of course I'm procrastinating, hence the blog entry of course. I took the bulk of the Easter weekend off - and only worked a little bit on Easter Monday. Since Thursday I've been reading very broadly around the area of research methodology - mostly about validity concerns. It seems such a long time ago that I engaged with this literature and it's hard to believe that at one time I really loved trying to unscramble issues related to methodology and validity, in particular. I've also been reading some theses, mostly around my research topic, that I procured from the British Library. It made for some very interesting reading - at times I felt completely inadequate when I read how eloquently and authoratively some people articulated their research study and the depth of their methodological understanding. Other times I truly wondered how some candidates' supervisors allowed them to get away with the obvious gaps in their discussion of a particular topic or their choice to present their literature reviews in the way they did. In these instances I felt confident - 'hey I can do this, and probably better than that candidate'. But besides the sort of voyeuristic benefits gained from this exercise I've been able to extract useful references, get a feel for how chapters have been structured, see how some people have chosen to write themselves into the research and importantly gain clarity on what I want to say about the research methodology and how I want to tell that story. If anything I'm clear that the heart of this chapter will be about my research experience and the choices (along with strong justifications) that guided my practices. I've decided I'm not going to tie myself up in ontological debates and epistemological dilemmas - I'm not going to take such a strong stance on foregrounding the ontological position of my research. I'm aware of the issues, and will make reference to them when I need to, but I'm taking an understated path this time around. Of course everything is ontologically driven - this very choice I'm making is deeply ontological - but at this point I've decided not to frame my discussion around this issue. Saying my research is interpretative and ethnographic speaks volumes about my positioning. I think anyway!

Monday 2 April 2012

the freedom to write

I had a rough week last week. Early Saturday afternoon probably worn down by fatigue of the emotional kind I found myself leaving work and I opting for a long break instead. My plan was not to do any work on Sunday, so I was a bit pissed off with myself that I didn't have the energy to put in sufficient hours on Saturday to make taking a break on Sunday feasible. But I was tired - so I took an afternoon nap, my guiltiest pleasure. But of course this merely lead to the all too familiar guilt-induced self loathing cycle of horrible thoughts. It goes something like this - I think that I can never work enough so whatever I do, irrespective how many hours I spend doing whatever - I always feel some degree of guilt that I could have worked harder or for longer. I hate that I don't have enough free time and that I can never 'give-up' my work and just relax. However, when I do relax, I feel guilty that I'm not working or when I am relaxing I'm constantly thinking about the work I could have been doing. I'm in perpetual purgatory.

Sunday - I had an arrangement to see an old house mate and accompany her to the local gym for a swim. I guess she was just what I needed. In a calm manner, after listening to all my troubles with writing, with guilt, with being in perpetual purgatory...she said 'you have to give yourself the freedom to write irresponsibly'. She also told me not to constantly focus on the August deadline and all the things I need to do. Worrying about the huge mountain I still need will probably make me more unproductive than productive. If I'm making progress not matter how small it might seem - I need to focus on the PROGRESS not on the 'small'.  She just encouraged me to work as much as I could each day and take time off - to let go of the guilt and the burden. But most important for me was her advice about the value of giving myself permission to write irresponsibly - saying whatever I wanted and how I wanted before writing in the manner demanded by my supervisors and the academy. In many ways writing has become an issue for me because I'm not allowing myself this fundamental part of the process. Fix it up later, one draft will never be enough, just get those initial ideas out there! Liberate, own it, be free. She's right of course - she is so right in many ways. I've decided to join the gym, to go swimming, to do zumba and yoga classes to sit in the steam room and bring some clarity to my mind in the process. To really give myself permission, the freedom to write - irresponsibly first, academically second. My sister said to me yesterday 'alles sal reg kom' and I actually believed her. It will come together eventually.